- Chapter X:
-
- Physical Fitness
-
- The physical fitness of the
Negro population of military age was less decisive than Army General
Classification Test scores in its effect upon the employment of Negro
troops, but it was nevertheless a matter of major importance to the
Army. As with mental and educational standards, changing physical
standards for induction and employment often caused administrative and
training complications in the absorption and assignment of Negro
men. Physical fitness problems affecting Negro inductions, employment,
and discharges were closely connected with the same factors which made
educational deficiencies so important to Negro units.
-
-
- Studies of the civilian health
of Negroes conducted before the war had shown that Negro life
expectancy was shorter than that of white Americans. Death rates were
higher among Negroes than among whites. Illness rates were also
higher.1 Poor health facilities in many of the areas from which
Negroes came, poor economic
circumstances which prevented many families from taking advantage of
the medical and dental facilities that did exist, poor housing and
inadequate diets which contributed to physical deficiencies, and
cultural standards which failed to produce precautions and sanctions
against social diseases were factors contributing both to higher death
and illness rates for civilians and to those physical disabilities
which resulted in high rejection rates for Negro registrants for
military service.
-
- All men inducted into the Army
during the first half of the war were very largely free of serious
physical defects. Sixty percent of the Negroes and 57 percent of the
whites available for general service between November 1940 and
December 1943 had no discoverable defects at all. Defects in the
remainder were minor. Among limited service personnel, available for
induction after June 1942, the major defects among white men were
those of the eyes and teeth, while among Negroes they were the
venereal diseases.
-
- Negro men inducted for limited
service (Selective Service Class I-B) constituted no large problem
for the Army, for relatively few Negroes were accepted for limited
service as such. The original experimental call in June 1942, designed to determine how well physically
- [275]
- substandard men could be
absorbed by the Army for use on nonstrenuous duty, contained 800 whites and
200 Negroes. The next call, in August 1942, required 2,500
whites only. Thereafter, Class I-B was discontinued, physical
standards were lowered, and limited service men were progressively
reclassified I-A (immediately available) if they had no major
disqualifying defects. At first 10 percent and, later, 5 percent of
the men of each race accepted each day at each induction station could
be limited service men. These color percentage quotas were dependent
upon regular induction calls and acceptances by race. They therefore
fluctuated considerably. At various times white limited service men up
to 20 percent of the men accepted and no Negroes were called, with
the result that, in 1943, 99846 white as compared with 4,184 Negro
limited service men and, in 1944, 34,352 white as compared with 1,747
Negro limited service men were inducted. After May 1944, acceptance of
limited service men ceased.2
-
- Excepting the venereal
diseases, all principal disorders among Negroes examined by local
boards and induction stations occurred proportionately about the same
number of times as among whites, with somewhat lower percentages of
defects of eyes, ears, teeth, lungs, and the musculo-skeletal system
among Negroes accepted and rejected than among whites. Figures on
rejections could not always be compared with accuracy, nor could
they be taken as a complete cross-sectional picture of the nation's health. The data on
defects were based on 10 to 20 percent samples of available reports.
They did not Include examinations of volunteers, Regular Army men,
National Guardsmen, and others entering the Army outside of the
Selective Service System. Nor did they report the health of deferred
men. Physical standards and reporting systems varied, at times, from
board to board and station to station. Complete listings of all
disqualifying defects were not always reported by examining stations. Selective Service found that the tendency to record or
summarize only the most serious defects of Negro registrants was
especially marked. Therefore, the immediately disqualifying defects
might be listed while less important disorders were ignored. While
they might not give a complete picture of the state of selectees
health, first examination reports did give a reliable accounting of
the availability of manpower for immediate service. Since nearly all
Negroes entered the Army through the Selective Service System, the
Negro figures when taken alone had a higher validity as a gauge of
Negroes availability; but since proportionately fewer whites entered
through Selective Service, comparative figures were a less valid index
to comparative racial health.3
-
-
- The first two million
serologic reports of selectees re-emphasized the importance of the
venereal diseases as deter-
- [276]
- rents to the full use of
American manpower. Unless some method could be found to reclaim and
use venereals, many of whom were otherwise free of physical defects, a
great body of potentially valuable manpower would be lost to the
military services. The venereal diseases became, therefore, a major
target for medical attack in preparation for and in prosecution of
the war. The venereal diseases, though they were by no means the only
physical factor involved, became the principal physical disability
markedly limiting the military employment of Negro as compared with
white manpower. Combined with educational deficiencies, they sharply
reduced the proportions of Negro registrants initially available for
general service. Primarily because of these two disproportionately
frequent defects, over half of the Negro registrants examined, as
compared with less than two fifths of the white registrants, were not
eligible for general service on their first examinations.4
-
- The problem posed for the Army
by the high rates of venereal disease among Negroes was threefold.
Venereal diseases complicated and slowed up, through deferments and
rejections, the selection and induction of Negro registrants during
the first years of the war. They caused a disproportionate loss of
administrative, training, and duty time once Negroes were inducted.
They placed a further strain on morale in the training and supervision
of Negro units. The presence of venereal diseases bulwarked personal
prejudices in the training and use of Negro troops. No amount of instruction in the
nature of transmission of these diseases could overcome completely
the aversion of most noninfected men to venereals. Nor did the
circulation and posting of reports detailing the high rates of
infection occurring in many Negro units aid in dispelling the
notion, often alluded to in officers' letters requesting transfers,
that Negro troops were personally careless and dirty.
-
- At the beginning of
mobilization, registrants with venereal diseases were rejected
completely, although some cases of men with gonorrhea, the venereal
disease most common and at the same time most difficult to detect by
routine examination methods, did get into the Army.5 After March 1942,
registrants with adequately treated syphilis could be inducted, but
the criteria of adequate treatment were such that few registrants with
a history of syphilis could meet them. Registrants with uncomplicated
gonorrhea became available for limited service at the same time. In
October 1942, men with uncomplicated gonorrhea up to 2 percent of
each race at each induction station (later raised to 4 percent)
could be inducted for general service. In December 1942, regulations
were again relaxed, with the number of venereals accepted geared to
the number of beds and rapid treatment facilities actually
available in reception centers. It was March 1943 before enough
treatment facilities became available to allow the Army to accept very
many venereals and to treat them
- [277]
- before their assignment to
regular training.6
-
- The higher incidence of
syphilis among Negroes was such that maintaining equal ratios of
venereal inductions by race in the first months of 1943 did not allow
a sufficiently rapid absorption of previously rejected Negro men. In
August 1943, therefore, induction stations were authorized to accept
Negroes with syphilis up to one third of the total Negro call.
Nevertheless, on 1 April 1945, when all inductions were slowing down,
it was estimated that 265,100 or 5-7 percent of all the 4,629,000
registrants aged 18-37 then in the rejected classes were
syphilitics. An additional 18,400 Or 0.4 percent were so classified
for other venereal diseases. Of these, over half in each category were
Negroes.7
-
- Those venereals who were
inducted under the relaxed Army standards of 1943 were treated and
cured of their diseases before entering regular training through the
use of new rapid treatment methods employing sulfa drugs and, later,
penicillin. Within Army units, therefore, the problem of venereal
disease was very largely one of the prevention and control of new
infections. While chaplains were free and in most commands were urged
to stress moral principles and control through continence, the Army approached its
prevention and control program from a practical medical point of
view closely related to manpower economics.
-
- Although Army control methods
succeeded in keeping Negro military rates below those of the Negro
civilian population, Negro units in a given area or command
continued to account for disproportionate numbers and percentages of
venereal infections. Until the treatment of uncomplicated cases on
duty status became possible, Negro soldiers lost a large number of
days from duty. During the first four months of 1942, when Negroes
constituted 7 percent of the strength of the Southeast Air Force
Training Center, they accounted for 42 percent of the center's cases.
In the First Air Force for October and November 1942, when Negroes
amounted to 11 percent of the command, they represented 40 percent
of the cases. In September 1942 the 93d Infantry Division, with 107
cases (a rate of 99 per 1000 per annum) , lost 2,226 man days from
duty, two and a half times as many days as any other division then
under Ground Forces control.8 In light of the training
difficulties of Negro units, excessive losses of duty time from
venereal diseases augured no good if allowed to proceed unchecked.
-
-
- The United States Public
Health Service's campaign against venereal diseases, underway during
the last half of the
- [278]
- thirties, had barely begun to affect
the country's Negro population by 1940. Despite concerted efforts at education
in the danger, prevention, and cure of venereal diseases, many Negro communities,
lacking good health and medical attention generally, had not come to a realization
of either the importance of or the possible treatments of venereal diseases.
General sanitary facilities were often such that minimum venereal disease
control at best was all that was possible. The names of the common venereal
diseases themselves were often unknown. Unless the problem was discussed
with soldiers in the more familiar slang terms, lectures on the dangers
of syphilis and gonorrhea often made little impression. The sufferer from
"bad blood" did not always connect his disorder with that which
the lecturer was discussing. Often lecturers, with their charts and technical
terms, failed to make their main points clearly, especially to slow learners.
One officer found a soldier who admitted that he had had trouble using the
chemical prophylaxis kit provided because he found it very difficult to
swallow its white tube.9
Others confirmed the existence of cultural barriers to the full efficacy
of the control program offered by the Army. Superstitions about the nature
of venereal diseases were widespread. Among both white and Negro troops
they acted as deterrents to educational programs, but Negro troops were
the more likely to have learned that it is impossible to contract venereal
diseases during the full of the moon or that drinking lemon juice was a
sure cure for gonorrhea.10
Resistance to prophylaxis was high, furthermore, because of widespread beliefs
that prophylactic measures and devices reduced virility. Reluctance to visit
prophylactic stations was increased in many situations-where stations were
located in or near police stations, where there was any question of their
free use by Negroes, where they were located away from the Negro sections,
or where they were so far from bus or train stations that the risk of missing
transportation back to camp was sufficient to make a soldier go directly
to the station rather than out of his way for prophylaxis. Moreover, the
leading citizenry, Negro as well as white, in many towns either had little
interest in or were reluctant to participate in venereal disease control
measures. In some towns, it was difficult to find a location for a prophylactic
station which was not objected to by the citizenry.11
-
- Even in areas where the May
Act had been invoked, Negro rates continued high. The May Act
permitted federal intervention in the control of prostitution in
areas around Army camps when local authorities were unable to act. 12
Organized prostitution, against which the May Act was primarily aimed,
was rare among Negroes in most areas, but available and willing women
were not. The control measures of the May Act were difficult to
enforce where the free lance prostitute, the bar girl, and the woman
described only as "friend" were
- [279]
- the major sources of
infection. Even with well-planned precautionary methods, rates might
remain high.
-
- Despite its efforts at
control, one engineer separate battalion located in a May Act area
had twenty-four cases in five weeks out of an average strength of
1,185 men, giving the battalion a rate of 211 per thousand per annum.
The twenty-four cases accounted for 277 man days lost from duty and
training. This unit scheduled lectures by the battalion surgeon or
exhibitions of venereal disease prevention training films twice a
month. Company commanders lectured on sex hygiene once a month.
Platoon sergeants also lectured once a month. For purposes of
dispelling fear of prophylaxis treatment, demonstration prophylaxis
was given in every squad of the organization. Mechanical prophylaxis
kits were supplied to every man going on
pass. Individual kits were given to each man going on overnight pass
or furlough. Each man returning from pass was required to report to
the dispensary and state whether or not he needed prophylactic
treatment. The location of prophylactic stations was posted in every
barrack. Posters advertising the value of prophylaxis were widely
displayed. Passes were restricted as much as possible consistent
with maintaining morale. And efforts were being made to provide
sufficient recreation on the post to keep men away from the camp
towns. Yet a number of factors limited the full success of this
program. Following preventive instructions was not easy for the men
of this battalion. In the largest of the nearby towns the prophylactic
facilities were hardly adequate. The colored station, approximately one
mile from the center of the Negro district, while accessible in the
summer, was less so in the winter. The white station, more
conveniently located in the center of town, had refused admittance
to several men of the organization who had applied for prophylaxis,
thus reducing sharply the number of potential applicants. After
remonstrances, the white station began to take Negro soldiers
"provided they are not obnoxious to local civilians."
Despite the fact that the rate in the Negro organizations on the
post was several times that of the white, the Control Board concluded,
the preventive facilities, including recreational diversions,
available for Negro soldiers were generally inferior to, and
therefore less effective, than those for whites.13
-
- Surveys elsewhere uncovered
similar problems. Standard remedies in addition to venereal disease
education programs became, first, cleaning up surrounding camp
towns, and second, furnishing increased on-post activities in order to
reduce the number of exposures.
-
- With or without facilities
that provided "wholesome" recreation for soldiers away
from camps, most camp towns had enough of a tenderloin district to
cause unit officers to despair of reducing their venereal rates. An
officer of one Negro unit reported that conditions in the nearby camp
town were "inimical to the efficiency, health, and welfare of
soldiers." Prostitution was rampant in cafes in the Negro
section; the restaurants themselves were "especially unclean." The officer reported:
- [280]
- As things go now a man going
on pass has little to improve his morale. Buses are crowded. Hours may
be spent to catch a bus. Our Negro troops are segregated in mixed
buses. Little recreation is possible. Almost no good place to eat. At
least one popular place is unsanitary. Vice is tempting. This puts
the soldier in a complaining frame of mind. The latter is especially
in evidence in relations with our soldiers and the Military Police . .
. . [There is an] apparent lack of interest in the Negro section by
the [town] administrative officers.14
-
- In another town, most of the
Negro houses of prostitution were located around the USO. The house
across the street from the USO contained eleven girls, ten of them
infected. Six of these had two diseases.15
-
- In many towns, the Negro district
was served by neither running water nor by a sewage system. This condition
made simple sanitation difficult. It made the use of soap-impregnated prophylactic
materials provided in Army kits almost impossible and certainly discouraging.
In a few cases no hot water was provided in prophylactic stations, either
in town or on post, with the result that soldiers would not use the stations.16
Under these circumstances, preventive instructions had little effect except
among that portion of a command which heeded the advice
to remain continent. Where recreational facilities were as limited as they
were in many towns and on many posts, and where troops felt that release
from frustrations and pent-up emotions was necessary at any cost, such advice
was not often heeded for long.
-
-
- A special problem was that
which existed at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, training home of the two
Negro infantry divisions and, before that, of the old Negro cavalry
and infantry regiments. Located in the Huachuca Mountains of
southeastern Arizona, Fort Huachuca had been a post since 1877- It had
no camp town at all. The nearest towns were Bisbee, 35 miles away and 10
miles from the border; Douglas and Agua Prieta, 60 miles away on
and across the Mexican border; Nogales, 65 miles away on both sides of
the border; and Tucson, 100 miles away. Each of these towns, with the
exception of Bisbee, was visited frequently by as large a number of
troops as could get away on pass.17 Prostitution was rife in most
of them, though Tucson and Douglas had relatively few Negro
prostitutes and only a small resident Negro population. The Mexican
towns, with their tourist attractions and their bordellos, usually
lying just outside of the city limits, and therefore subject to little
municipal control, were patronized generously by soldiers from Fort
Huachuca. The welcome there was warmer than in the Arizona towns. In
Nogales,
- [281]
- Sonora, for example, all but
two dance halls and restaurants were open to Negro soldiers; they were
"welcome to all the cantinas (bars) and cheap restaurants and
particularly to the red-light district for which they represent its
principal source of income.18 is Local fears, growing vice
conditions, and mounting racial tensions gradually caused most of the
Arizona towns, or major portions of them, to be closed at times to
Fort Huachuca personnel. But the Mexican towns and the nearby
unincorporated settlement of Fry, lying just outside the gates of the
post, remained open. Fry offered, in exaggeration, all the allure, if
none of the exotic glamor, of the Mexican towns.
-
- Because it was surrounded by a desert
with no nearby communities and because it was located in a part of the country
with practically no Negro population, Fort Huachuca, since the days when
it was a frontier post garrisoned with Negro soldiers of the old regiments,
had considered Fry a quasi-necessary adjunct. White Arizonians, thinking
of Fry as a safety valve, tended to agree. In Fry lived women. Some of them
were employees of the post and some were members of soldiers' and civilians'
families, but most of them-and sometimes the former were included in this
number-were prostitutes and camp followers. As the post commander described
it in 1942:
-
- The small town of Fry is
dirty, unsanitary and squalid. It has been so for many years. It was
made worse in these respects (luring the construction of the
cantonment when two or three thousand
white laborers were employed here. During this period, when a much
lesser number of soldiers was stationed here, the expulsion of
prostitutes from Fry was directed by the Commanding General, Eighth
Corps Area. A considerable number of prostitutes left, most of whom
are believed to have drifted back in a short period of time. When the
drive was on, soldiers, including N. C. O.'s, married a considerable
number of prostitutes rather than see them leave. Some of this latter
group are known to have continued to ply their trade. Following this
action there was noticeable a restless and disgruntled attitude on
the part of the soldiers which showed itself in various ways. White
women in Fry became so alarmed with reference to their security that
the unions at work on the cantonment threatened to have their laborers
leave the job as they said they would not work where their families
were not secure. I personally addressed mass meetings of these unions,
guaranteed their families security and persuaded them to remain at
work.19
-
- As the numbers of laborers in
Fry decreased, the number of soldiers on the post increased, leading
the post commander to observe that the number of prostitutes in Fry
had probably increased, too, "as a natural reaction to the law
of supply and demand." 20
Many of them were transients arriving
for a few days, renting or sharing a shanty, then leaving to return at
a later date.
-
- Venereal disease control was
at best a difficult problem, but with a Fry and its Blue Moon area,
made up of tin shanties, lean-to's, and tents inhabited by an
undetermined number of camp followers, the problem of control at
Fort Huachuca, especially after the arrival of large units,
- [282]
- became more difficult. Fry
became widely known and discussed both at Fort Huachuca and
elsewhere. The post commander admitted that, after considering
several possibilities, his sympathies lay with retaining Fry in an
improved and regulated form. He believed that repression of
prostitution in Fry would be a danger to surrounding communities and
to morale on the post. Moreover, scattering prostitutes in an area
where there were no communities that wished to receive them would be
most difficult. To the post commander there were but three solutions
to prostitution in Fry:
-
- a. What is in my opinion the
best solution, is prohibited by War Department policy. That solution
is: Definitely segregated areas which the Federal, State and County
health authorities can control and outside of which no prostitution
would be permitted. With such a system, infected women could be put
out of circulation and treated and the military authorities could
arrange for every man entering such a segregated area taking
prophylaxis treatments.
- b. The second solution is to
let the prostitution situation drift along as I have found it and
endeavor, with the cooperation of the Federal, State and County
authorities, to arrange for the treatment of infected women and at
the same time take every possible precaution by means of education,
persuasion, and thoroughness in operations, to insure the greatest
number of prophylactic treatments to men who become exposed.
- c. The third solution, is to
entirely eradicate prostitution in the town of Fry and other towns
visited by soldiers and to prohibit soldiers from entering Mexico. It
is believed that little good would be accomplished by prohibiting
prostitution in Fry and permitting it to exist in other towns in the
vicinity, including Mexico. Probably more harm than good would be done
as we can control more definitely,
- prophylaxis treatments at Fry that we can in
other towns . . . .21
-
- With the first solution not
approved by the War Department policy and the third one not feasible,
Fry was left with the military authorities taking "every possible
precaution," though a version of the first solution was briefly
tried. Toward the end of 1942, since neither county nor state
officials had moved to repress prostitution in the area, post
authorities, with the co-operation of local civilian authorities,
moved the more notorious and easily detected prostitutes into a wire
enclosure, carrying their shanties and tents bodily with them. This
area, one of whose boundaries was provided by the post's fencing,
became known as "The Hook." On the Fry side of the post all
roads and paths from the bus station, the Gate theater, the USO clubs,
and the Green Top, led directly to The Hook, whose gates, guarded by a
military police checking station and a prophylactic station, the
latter supplemented by another inside, saw hundreds of soldiers come
and go daily.22
-
- Meetings with residents of Fry were
held in early 1943 at which it was explained that both the laws of Arizona
and the May Act gave sufficient authority to close every place in town.
At one meeting, where over a hundred residents were present, the post commander
announced that the discussion was "not for those living a virtuous
life with their family." Nobody left.23
He then ex-
- [283]
- plained rules for the
registry, photographic identification, and weekly examination of
every woman in The Hook. Nobody objected.
-
- Fry and The Hook, with their
new regulatory measures, came to the attention of other federal
agencies and of civilian social hygiene associations. The regional
Venereal Disease Control Committee, made up of representatives of the
Army, Navy, U.S. Public Health Service, and the Federal Security
Agency was less than satisfied with the Huachuca solution. At a
meeting in Houston at the end of January 1 943, representatives of the
American Social Hygiene Association and the Federal Security Agency
complained that so long as all officials of the Mexican border cities
knew that Fort Huachuca was "conducting a stockade" the
Pan American Sanitary Commission could hardly hope to establish
effective border control of venereal disease.24 Protests to the War
Department that the post was violating Army directives brought action
against the Huachuca solution. The Ninth Service Command, on orders
from Army Services Forces, directed that Fort Huachuca stop using
military personnel to control and examine prostitutes in Fry.25
-
- The fences around The Hook
were removed and repressive measures were again attempted. After the
departure of the 93d Division in April 1943, many of the women
residents left the area. Those remaining were ousted by the county
sheriff in May. When, as part of the pressure against prostitution,
one of the landowners in the area
was persuaded not to renew his leases and rental contracts, thus
forcing the users of the land to move, another landowner leased or
sold new land to the camp followers, who picked up their tents and
shanties and started a new settlement a short distance from the old.
Others moved to nearby towns. The local USO and, later, the newly
constructed Fry Amusement Center (the Green Top) helped matters, but
Fry and vestiges of The Hook, still going under the same name,
remained. To the new full-time post venereal disease control officer
Fry seemed "the strangest situation in the American Army."
No camp in America, he continued, had "vice and corruption at
its front door" like Fort Huachuca. Venereal disease might become
a secondary matter in Fry, he concluded. "Soldiers entering the
huts in that area may well bring into this camp the most dreaded
diseases of modern times. From a public health point of view, typhus,
the plague and cholera loom a serious menace and an actual
possibility." 26
-
- After trying a number of other
expedients, including the medical examination of all men entering
or leaving it, Army authorities declared "the famous Hook
area" and neighboring places off-limits to Fort Huachuca soldiers
at "12 o'clock noon," Sunday, 22 August 1943.27 That
afternoon the venereal disease control officer saw
"unaccustomed thousands" of men in the stands
- [284]
- at the ball game and
"countless hundreds" lined up in front of theaters. Fry
was "all but a deserted village. Infected prostitutes in The
Hook, whose pockets in the past have bulged, were fleeing the area by
the scores." 28
Thereafter many of the women moved back to Fry,
some returning to one or another house, others becoming transient,
using local taverns and the Green Top as soliciting points.29 Some
became mobile purveyors of their wares, cruising the surrounding
area in automobiles, often with their mattresses tied to the tops of
their cars.30
-
- Nevertheless Fort Huachuca, relying
on its compulsory prophylaxis system, with men ordered to check in and out
of prophylaxis stations when leaving or entering post or Mexican border
areas, supplemented by an intensive educational program and an extensive
use of the off-limits power as main measures of control, did reduce its
problem. The post's weekly Venereal Disease Bulletin, written with exceptional
vigor and directness, was ordered read to all enlisted men at a formation
before being posted on unit bulletin boards. The bulletin listed all new
danger spots- local, on the border, and sometimes as far away as Memphis,
Tennessee. Appeals made in the bulletin ranged from straight educational
doctrine and the publication of comparative unit rates with honor rolls
and black lists, through appeals to race pride, family honor, the future,
religious considerations, and mere self interest, to sardonic attacks on
the foolishness of the victim who, having been warned, continued to take
his chances. Intensive and unremitting
campaigns for the last six months of 1943 reduced the post's rate from ten
times the Army standard to twice the standard at the end of the year.31
The service command's venereal disease control officer was able to write
in November, "everyone up here is most pleased with the way things
are going." 32
-
- Fry was not alone among the
towns which allowed relatively uncontrolled vice to concentrate, for
much the same reasons, in their Negro districts. While the problem was
not so large elsewhere, both because the number of troops was smaller
and the isolation less, the absence of community, and at times of
command, support for cleaning up camp towns was a frequent obstacle to
control measures. Civilian Negro communities in general were reluctant
to become involved in antivenereal or other programs which had
connection, actual or implied, with local police and municipal
authorities. "The answer," one Negro observer declared,
"is racial fear and skepticism, which makes them want to be left
alone and attend to their own business. In most things for community
good they will tell you `I don't want to interfere' or `I don't want
to be mixed up in it.' They want to stay hidden in the background and
live a quiet life for themselves and family." 33
The resistance
of Negro citizens to participation in venereal disease control
- [285]
- programs was overcome in a few
communities, notably those with good general public health programs
where the co-operation of white citizens and communities was
available. Various devices to reduce the exposure risk among soldiers
were tried. Appeals to race pride were common. One post bulletin,
announcing a venereal disease campaign slogan contest for Negro troops
chided, ". . . the Negro has excelled in every phase of warfare
except the control of V.D." 34
The First Air Force issued a
pamphlet, "Who, Me?" especially for Negro soldiers. At some
posts the unit with the best record got a trophy for excellence; on at
least one post, the unit with the worst got a booby prize-a handsomely
mounted eight ball.35 Still others tried various
systems of
identifying non-prostitutes, with some areas of heavy incidence
resorting to the use of "health cards," obtained from local
physicians or clinics. At MacDill Field, Florida, all women visitors
to the "Colored Area" of the field were required to have
"V-ette" cards, obtained without charge at the Negro USO in
Tampa. These cards, similar to those used for white visitors to the
base, served as substitutes for passes issued by organizations. They
were available after the local USO had checked several references and
had ascertained that the applicant
was in good health .36
-
-
- None of these varied plans and
improvisations worked so well as a program begun at Tuskegee
Army Air Field, later prescribed for the Air Forces at large and,
still later, in slightly altered form, for the Army as a whole. This
program was essentially a combination of measures already in effect
at other places plus some innovations which were to spell the
difference between the success of the Tuskegee program and the
failure of so many others.
-
- Tuskegee, essentially a flying
school with roughly 1,300 men in addition to cadets, found its
venereal rate climbing steadily through the first half of 1942. The
post was located in a high civilian incidence area near several other
airfields and camps. As the military installations in the area
expanded, infected women flocked to nearby towns where honky-tonks
and dance halls offered easy pickings for the soldiers of Gunter,
Maxwell, and Craig Fields, near Montgomery; Camp Rucker and Napier
Field to the south; Fort Benning at Columbus; Fort McClellan, near
Birmingham; and Tuskegee, halfway between Montgomery and Columbus
and not too far from Birmingham and Atlanta.
- [286]
- Tuskegee's new venereal disease
control officer, Maj. George McDonald, who had operated a successful municipal
control program in Baltimore before entering the Army, found early that
the simplest control measures- getting rid of infected women or of the places
in which they were to be found- were not simple where Negro troops were
concerned. "Some might argue," he told the Alabama governor's
conference on venereal diseases, "that if we could get rid of the honky-tonks
we would get rid of the chief meeting places of a large group of prostitutes.
The answer to that was forcefully brought out to me during the beginning
of our VDC Program. We found that fully 70 percent of all our venereal disease
cases were contracted in Montgomery. We went to the Commanding Officer and
seriously begged him to put Montgomery off-limits for our station. His answer
was a question- 'Where else or what else have you got to offer in its place?'
I must admit, I was stumped." 37
-
- The Tuskegee program
emphasized a system of "sub-venereal disease control
officers" in addition to the usual program of films, lectures,
and command discipline. The sub-venereal disease control officers were
enlisted men, mainly noncommissioned officers, thoroughly trained in
venereal disease control theories and practice. Each unit contained
one or more such officers, supplementing the normal program. As
enlisted men, these workers were able to uncover considerably more
information concerning contacts in surrounding communities than the
average commissioned officer could
locate. Their lectures and discussions with groups of soldiers, plus
pamphlets especially prepared for the men of the field, had greater
effect than those of medical officers alone. Impetus to a reduction of
rates was given by a periodic publication of the rates for each unit
at the station, including comparisons with rates of other units and
stations in the training center, thus enlisting both local
competition and racial pride on the side of VD control. Communications from the post commander to unit commanders stressed
their responsibilities for control as part of their over-all
efficiency as commanders. Better planned and more frequent surprise
physical inspections were instituted. Prophylactic kits were made
readily available and demonstrations of their proper use were given
frequently.38 Within a comparatively few months the Tuskegee program
had reduced the station's rate from one of the highest in the area to
one of the lowest-from 300 to 400 per thousand per annum in the summer
of 1942 to 20 and 28 in October and November, with the rate at the
Primary Field falling to a flat zero in those months.39
-
- After his success at Tuskegee,
Major McDonald was requested by the Army Air Forces to make a tour of
airfields,
- [287]
- where he gave talks and
demonstrations to Negro troops. At the same time, lie made
supplementary reports on the venereal disease situation as it existed
in the areas surrounding the fields visited .40 But, as he
informed Army Air Forces headquarters when future lecturing trips were
proposed for him, the amount of good coming from short term intensive
work was purely temporary. To be of lasting value, a program had to
be in operation day in and day out.41
-
- In May 1943, a special school for
the instruction of noncommissioned officers in venereal disease control
as developed at the field was authorized at Tuskegee. Men were sent to the
successive courses of this school from all over the Air Forces and many
of the fields with smaller units began to obtain more effective results.42
Both the 92d Division and the post at Fort Huachuca instituted the sub-venereal
control system in mid-1943, helping reduce the rates at Fort Huachuca for
the rest of the year.43
-
- After the courses at Tuskegee
became generally available, upon application for quotas, to all Air
Forces stations- and to other posts that
requested attendance for their men-failure to make use of the
Tuskegee method was regarded within the Air Forces as an indication
of laxity in venereal disease control measures. Temporary schools,
modeled on the Tuskegee curriculum, were set up both for white and for
Negro students at other posts.
-
- The Tuskegee plan was
officially extended to the rest of the Army in expanded form after a
conference on Venereal Disease Problems among Colored Troops, held by
The Surgeon General on 13 October 1943. The new system of control,
directed in February 1944,44 went further when it authorized a Negro
venereal disease control officer for military installations with a
Negro strength of 5,000 or more. This officer was to serve as an
assistant to the station venereal disease control officer.45 His
duties were: directing venereal disease education for colored
personnel; securing contact information from infected colored
soldiers; supervising prophylactic facilities for Negro personnel;
and maintaining close liaison with the post special service officer in
providing recreation for Negro troops.
-
- Continuing and better
educational aids were provided. Original educational materials had
paid little attention to the Negro phase of the problem as such. New
filmstrips included Negro materials as aids to recognition and
awareness on the part of Negro troops; an
- [288]
- antivenereal disease film with
Negro characters was produced. Pamphlet and poster material aimed at
Negro troops, using Negro figures, were produced locally and by
central distribution agencies.
-
- Compliance with the directive
to furnish Negro venereal disease control officers at the larger camps
proceeded
- slowly, with many of the officers coming directly from the
Medical Administrative Corps' officer candidate schools. The stations
successful in lowering their venereal disease rates were those which
developed continuing intensive programs. Specific responsibility for
the Negro program vested in one individual as a full-time job brought
best results. Differences observed between two camps some months after
the publication of the new system illustrated the need for
comprehensive, continuous programs. Both stations were located in
similar environments. Although neither was currently operating at the
5,000 strength required for the appointment of a Negro venereal
disease control officer, the more successful station had had a
regularly detailed Negro technical sergeant-called locally the
Health Educator-performing the duties of such an officer for
approximately two years. The sergeant conducted intensive courses in
venereal disease control for noncommissioned officers of new units,
utilizing lectures, projects, and practical problems as teaching
methods. Efforts of the post were aided by the existence of a good
venereal disease control program as a part of the larger public
health program of the county in which the post and largest camp town
were located. Two organizations, both known as "The Health
Crusaders," were an important link between
the county health agency and the community. The local white Young
Men's Business Club adopted venereal disease control as its main
community program for the coming year. The town's Negro ministers were
either co-operative or at least not opposed to the program. All
hostesses and junior hostesses at the USO received instructions
concerning the program. The local prophylactic station was an
unusually well-run one, with Negro medical technicians on duty
twenty-four hours a day. The only difficulties experienced at this
post were an inability to obtain 100 percent use of the town
dispensary by the men and an inability to obtain complete co-operation from some company commanders who, despite the offer of
post assistance, remained lukewarm toward the program.46
-
- The program at the second camp
in the same general area was much more spotty and therefore less
successful. At this post there was no continuing day in and day out
stimulation by a specialist. Attitudes and efforts, unit by unit,
ranged from "spirited execution to neglect and lack of
cooperation on the part of company officers." One company
officer, when asked about his unit's consistently high rate, told the
visiting medical officer that he had never found himself unable to
"write a satisfactory indorsement." The second camp,
moreover, had less co-operative surrounding communities and less
advantageously located prophylactic facilities. All three of the
dispensaries maintained in the three nearby towns were used by
- [289]
- white and Negro soldiers, two
of them with separate waiting rooms and none of them located near the
Negro sections of the towns. A fourth area visited by the men of the
post was the nearest large town, with two dispensaries, one for whites
and one for Negroes. Both were unattractive, with dirt floors and
inadequate space. Both were poorly located, with the Negro dispensary
on the ground floor of the Negro USO building and the white station
under a staircase in the rear of a police station. Both locations
discouraged use. Attendants' hours at the Negro station were
irregular, with the result that Negro soldiers complained of being
refused by the white dispensary when their station was closed. The
saving factor of the second camp's program was that the towns
frequented by its soldiers had fewer venereal disease contacts than
the town frequented by the soldiers of the camp with the better
program. Consequently, the lower rates at the first camp indicated
that providing "direct and active assistance to units on the
company level [was] the most important deterrent to contraction of
venereal disease and the resulting high rates." 47
-
- The relatively more intensive
measures of control needed for Negro troops were constant and
additional burdens for commanders. Instruction and control was a
continuing problem, both in training and overseas. Some commanders
connected high venereal diseases rates with increased pay rates
coupled with the low AGCT scores of Negro troops; some found in them
confirmation of the inability of Negro troops to conform to standard
mores and controls; and some viewed them as
yet another example of innate differences between Negro and white
troops. At times, therefore, the venereal situation among Negro troops
helped bulwark initial resistance to the use and command of Negro
troops, and especially to the use of Negro officers.
-
- Specific instances reinforced
this latter resistance in some units. Within a month of activation,
one combat team of a division was faced with the problem of what to
do about three Negro officers hospitalized for venereal diseases.
The fact that one case was a "recurrence" of an old
infection of eight years standing did not help matters. Aside from the
necessary paper work and discussion of the proper procedures to be
followed under new regulations and policies for dealing with venereal
cases, the symbolic dangers of the situation to the division were
clear.48 Their regimental commander later requested that the officers
be transferred, as "the fact of [their] treatment is generally
known among the officers of the regiment and in all probability
among the enlisted men also . . . . It is believed the future
usefulness of these officers in this regiment has been seriously
impaired." 49
No matter what action was taken the damage to the
division, especially in terms of relations between white and Negro
officers and in terms of the respect of enlisted men for their Negro
officers, had been done.
- [290]
-
- While venereal diseases, as
recorded by race on statistical charts in reports, were dramatically
evident problems among Negro troops, they were not the sole concern of
unit commanders in the area of health. Though the Negro venereal
rates remained high, the common complaint of commanders was not so
much that excessive numbers of their men contracted venereal diseases,
for the number of patients in a given unit at any one time was likely
to be low despite the high rates indicated by the thousand men per
annum count. The average unit was more likely to complain that the
general physical fitness and stamina of its men was low.
-
- If it is assumed that Army physical
standards were adhered to at induction stations for both Negroes and whites,50
it is difficult to explain the apparently rapid physical deterioration of
many Negro enlisted men after induction into the Army. A variety of factors-
better dietary and sanitary surroundings than large numbers of Negro soldiers
were accustomed to in civilian life, regulated physical exercise and development,
adequate medical and dental care
51-
should have, and undoubtedly did, raise the physical standards of many Negro
soldiers. Yet the average Negro unit reported generally lower physical stamina
among its enlisted men than the average white unit reported.
-
- Occasionally suggestions were
made that Negro soldiers, especially those from the Deep South, had
lower resistance that might be attributed to chronic deficiency
diseases. In the 4th Cavalry Brigade of the 2d Cavalry Division
during freezing and subzero weather in the winter of 1942, there were
over 200 cases of frostbite, ranging from minor freezing of ears,
fingers, and feet to more serious cases. Eighteen serious cases,
mostly of frozen feet, occurred in a single truck convoy of the 10th
Cavalry en route from Omaha, Nebraska, to Fort Riley, Kansas. On the
same occasion none of the thirty white truck drivers in the same
convoy suffered frostbite. Moreover, during the same period in the
remainder of the division, whose other components were white, there
were only eight minor cases. Most of the Negro victims were from
Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. Ignorance and faulty guidance on the
part of troop leaders, ignorance or failure to obey orders on the
part of enlisted men, or inability of troop commanders to obtain
replacements of worn-out or lost items of clothing may have played
their part, but the fact remained that
- [291]
- many more Negro than white
soldiers in the same command suffered from frostbite under the same
conditions. 52
-
- Troops were generally less
physically fit in the later years of the war when many men previously
rejected were inducted into the Army. Progressively lower physical
standards affected white units as well, but with a greater number of
units in a given training command and a larger number of overhead
installation position vacancies to which men rejected during
preparation for overseas movement (POM) could be sent, the problem was
less concentrated than among Negro units.
-
- Moreover, in many Negro units large
numbers of physically substandard men appeared long before the last phases
of the war. As of March 1 943, less than a year after activation, the 93d
Division had discharged 3,790 men- a full quarter of a division's authorized
strength- for physical disabilities. Of these, 414 were discharged with
certificates of disability, 155 through Section VIII procedures,53
and 3,221 through clearing field forces procedures for the physically unfit.54
Many other units complained of physically unfit men who either could not
or would not pass the required physical tests. Many of these men were cast-offs
shifted from unit to unit on successive transfers, becoming, as one training
inspector expressed it, "one of a rotating pool, a border line case subject to conflicting
medical opinion, [who] bounces around like a pellet in a pin-ball
machine, because he represents a type that will do productive work
only under constant supervision to say nothing of his contribution to
the delinquency records."55
A company commander described
the situation in his unit:
-
- There are some men in this
Company who should not be in the Army, from the way they walk. Whether
it is done on purpose or not I do not know but some of them walk on
the side of their heels. We have one man who says he has to be wet all
the time, that he cannot stand the heat, and gets excited quickly.
Some of them are being written up now by the Medical Officer for
discharge.56
-
- Of fifty filler replacements
received at one post for use in committed units, twenty-five were
physically unfit for overseas duty. One was blind in one eye with
defective vision in the other; others had heart disease, high blood
pressure, venereal diseases, or drug addictions. Granting that sending
stations tended to adjudge men more highly qualified than receiving
stations did, this was a case requiring explanation. The surgeon of
the sending station declared that these men were examined at his
station and at general hospitals; they were believed to be eligible
for full duty. Physically perfect men were becoming scarce, he
remarked, and added: "It must be remembered that the type and
class of
- [292]
- colored soldiers now being
inducted is not what one would desire." 57
-
- A case might be made that some of
the men in units, casual pools, and detachments who were considered physically
unfit did suffer from disabilities aggravated by military training and service
or that, as physical standards were changed, men with limiting disabilities
were brought into the Army too freely. During mid-1943, when reclassifications
out of Class IV-F (physically or mentally disqualified) were at a peak,
proportionately more Negroes than whites were shifted from IV-F to classes
eligible for induction. Twenty-three percent of the men placed in Class
IV-F during this period were Negroes, but 36 percent of those leaving IV-F
for induction were Negroes. Many of these men had previously been rejected
under higher physical standards; others had been administratively rejected
as being in excess of permitted quotas of limited service men, syphilitics,
and illiterates which the Army could accept.58
One officer, observing large numbers of them, commented: "These men,
having been told they were unfit several times before, believe they are
still unfit for military service and spend much of their time attempting
to convert the Army to their point of view." 59
-
- Willfully or otherwise, the
mental attitudes of these men played a large part in their low physical
state. By the end of 1942 nearly a third of the patients on medical
wards at Fort Huachuca were already exhibiting signs of combined
mental and physical illnesses, heightened, one observer felt, by
contacts with other patients which produced a monotonous
repetition of similar "simple patterns of psychogenic
symptoms." The report specified:
-
- About 30 percent of the
patients occupying beds assigned to the medical service had
psychogenic symptoms produced by the desire to get out of the Army.
These symptoms were seldom referrable to the emotional or intellectual
sphere and thus complicated psychoneuroses were rare. A few patients
had neuro-circulatory asthenia. The majority complained of sticking
pains at the left nipple, pain in the chest, shortness of breath on
exertion and pains in the legs. A few complained of nervousness and
would begin to shake for the examiner's benefit. The remainder
complained of back pain, pains in the extremities, or of pains in old
surgical wounds or in scars of injuries or in old injuries all of
which had been dormant for years before induction. Thus the heart,
the back and the extremities, or old scars and injuries were the loci
to which the primitive minds projected the symptoms born of a desire
to escape.60
-
- Few of these patients, even
when they had only minor difficulties that were not sufficient to make
further combat training unprofitable, showed any desire to keep up
with training.
-
- Though medical officers could
seldom find cogent reasons for the poor physical condition of many
of the complaining men, they were equally unsuccessful in any
significant number of cases in proving willful shirking of tasks
requir-
- [293]
- ing physical endurance. Many
unit officers and some medical officers were nevertheless convinced
that malingering, and not physical disorders, was the answer to the
complaints of many of the soldiers. In the absence of proof of
malingering or of medical reasons for transfer or discharge, the
"sick men" became liabilities to their units.
"Malingering is about to run me crazy," one infantry
battalion commander commented. "There are entirely too many
'cripples'-men complaining of . . . 'hurting' in de grine and . . .
misery in de back.' You take them over to the medics. The medics may
say they're all right, but they'll continue their limping. You don't
know what to do with them." 61
One of this officer's company
commanders declared:
-
- You may watch most any company
coming off the field and you'll see a line of from five to
twenty-five stragglers or `cripples.' They will fall out on the march,
go over and sit under a mesquite bush, laugh and talk, and yell at
other men to come and fall out with them. They are by no means
whipped; they have stamina left. But they have not the pride in
themselves as men and soldiers to go ahead and finish the march.62
-
- Other commanders were
similarly convinced that many complaints of physical disabilities
were willful evasions of duty or were faked to avoid passing
inspections for overseas readiness-a certain indication of low
unit and individual morale where it occurred.
-
- One service commander observed
of the men in a battalion which had already been twice rejected for
overseas service:
-
- Recently, one of my inspecting
officers, who had so far not appeared at that particular unit, was
mistaken by my colored friends for one of General Peterson's inspectors. About five or six of
them promptly told him reasons why they were not fit for overseas
duty. Five of them claimed they had physical defects. A couple more of
them had never fired their
weapons. They, of course, were promptly checked. The five had never
appeared on sick call. They were re-examined and found to be excellent
physical specimens. The other two men had certainly fired their
rifles, and had done very well, incidentally.63
-
- Some camps separated the
chronic complainers into special casual or "ZI" units in
order to minimize their effect on other soldiers. Some of these
special units grew large toward the end of the war; others, aided by a
supervised change in mental outlook, had a remarkably high
percentage of restorations to physical fitness. A training center
commander reported his experience with the latter:
-
- I had a lot of trouble with
the people that were basically malingerers. The thing I was most
concerned with was that they were like bad apples in the barrel. Every
time one of them went along chinning himself on the ground, he got the
other fellows feeling bad, and they got to going around the same way .
. . . Every time I
- saw a malingerer, I grabbed
him up. I set up a rest camp or special training camp for them at a
mountain about 35 miles west. It is up at an elevation of 8300 feet,
35 miles from the nearest road or railroad. We told them there were a
lot of bears in the mountains, too.
- [294]
- I obtained a medical officer,
a psychiatrist, a dietitian, and a physical trainer that Colonel
McDonald [station hospital] hired for me, and sent them all up there
for perfect service. If a man had a bad arm, he got exercises all
day long, especially prescribed to develop the arm. Most of the
fellows were very bad off. If it was a bad leg, they got leg
exercises; if it was their backs, they got back exercises; all
prescribed by a professional physical trainer. If they had too many
pains, that probably were caused by acid in the system-too much
meat-they got a special diet-and they did not get pork chops.
-
- We put the lights out at nine
P.M., so they had plenty of sleep. They needed their rest, so they got
it. I made quite a few cures. We have run about 900 men through there
so far, and the system has proved fairly fruitful. It worked out well.
-
- The people I have down in the
main camp now are doing all right. I get very few of these sick ones
any more, and Saturday before I came down here, I was able to close
the rest camp . . . .64
-
- But not all commands were so
successful in dealing with the physically unfit. The 92d Division
in July 1944, after the departure of its 370th Combat Team for Italy,
and on the eve of its own movement to a port of embarkation, still
had 1,700 men who were not physically qualified for combat, many of
them POM rejects of the 2d Cavalry Division, the 364th Infantry, the
366th Infantry, and half a hundred other miscellaneous units.65 How
these men got into the division was not always clear. Some of them had
come on orders issued by neither Fourth Army nor by Army Ground Forces. But that
they were men culled from other units was abundantly clear. Many,
upon arrival, had already been classified as physically unfit for
full service. As the division prepared for overseas movement, the
number of such men showed signs of growing larger. By August it had
reached 2,000. A covey of colonels, white and Negro, including a
medical officer, some from Fourth Army and others detailed by Army
Ground Forces from Washington and from other field units, descended
upon Fort Huachuca to investigate, assess the situation, and make
recommendations.
-
- They found that the division had
received, in the preceding twelve months, 6,242 enlisted men from 61 other
organizations. In the same period it had sent out to other organizations
2,243 enlisted men as replacements. The division had sent out better men
than it had received. Its casual detachment, despite discharges and the
arbitrary return of to percent of the men to each organization, was filled
with unfit men. Most of them had been tried in as many as three position
vacancies within the division. Upon discovery, on marches or maneuvers,
that they could or would not keep up, these men were given medical examinations.
The casuals were of two general types: Class C and D men, medically certified
to be in the poorest physical condition and therefore eligible for clearance
from tactical organizations; and "Q-minus" men, medically qualified
personnel who nevertheless failed to pass physical tests. Of the 2,272 men
reported to be in this camp by the Fourth Army, about 950 were rated Class
"Q-minus."
-
- The casual camp, separate and
at some
- [295]
- distance from the division
area, was self supporting as to messing, housing, and administration,
though the men were still carried on their organizations' rolls. No
training was given them, but they did furnish their own and some
division details. They required additional officer and
noncommissioned officer Supervisors, but nevertheless until the
first week of August there was insufficient leadership personnel to
exercise full discipline and control. "Generally these men
moved slowly to their assigned tasks, dragging or limping as their
illness, feigned or real, dictated," one of the investigating
colonels reported, "If `allergic' to wearing helmet liner,
shoes, leggings, belts, they were required to carry them along
wherever they went." 66
One result of this policy was described
by a group of observers:
-
- The men were observed to form
ranks slowly. Some of them carried their helmets instead of wearing
them, others carried their shoes instead of having them on their feet,
wearing low cut shoes instead, and some were carrying chairs,
suit-cases, and other impedimenta. Many of the shoes were cut open
over the toes or were unlaced. Some of the men wore no socks. The
men did not march in cadence. Many of them limped and some were
stooped or bent at the waist.67
-
- Placing the potentially
reclaimable with the actually unfit aggravated the problem to such an
extent that it was doubted that any of these men were by then of
future value to the Army. Observed one of the inspecting colonels:
-
- The retreat formations where
these men are allowed to move at will to the parade ground, instructed
to sit down in formation if they can not stand and to move back to
their areas at will . . . is a spectacle that is not only devastating
to morale, but is giving aid and comfort to these men in their
beliefs of being physically unfit, and from which, it will be most
difficult for theta to recover.68
-
- Said another:
-
- When the men present marched
off the field, all took up a peculiar, shuffling gait of a nature
which the undersigned has never before seen. It was beyond the
possibility of any coincidence that all men in ranks should be so
afflicted as to be unable to march off the field at a gait faster than
about one-half mile per hour.69
-
- Officers, medical and line,
white and Negro, were often convinced that many of these men were
physically fit and that they should not be discharged but made to work
at non-combat assignments, preferably overseas, for the good of the
morale of the rest of the 92d Division. "This Casual Detachment
now constitutes a menace to the morale of the Division," one
medical officer declared:
-
- Right now we are having
trouble in preventing men with hitherto good records from going over
to join it. I believe it would be a mistake to discharge this large
- [296]
- number of men as undesirables;
neither should they be assigned to soft jobs. It is true there are
some borderline physical cases, which can and should be sorted out, by
more careful examination. The great majority of these men are
malingerers; they should be forced to do duty involving some hazard
and hard work . . . . It is too bad the division did not proceed
direct overseas at the end of maneuvers.70
-
- Unproved but persistent rumors
that these men, when on pass or when visiting nearby Fry where they
were no longer under the surveillance of officers, were quite able to
move with an alacrity and ease markedly absent during duty hours lent
further support to these views. There was no suggestion that general
medical care at Fort Huachuca was not of the best; reports on this
camp throughout the war commented on the excellence of the medical
equipment and staff at its two hospitals. 71
-
- While there were differences
of opinion on the number of men who were true malingerers, all
observers agreed that physical and mental ills were combined in the
cases of many of these men and that grouping them together had made
their ills, real or fancied, a fixed part of their behavior. All had
taken on the liabilities of the others, magnifying their own
disabilities in the shadow of the continuing complaints of their
neighbors. The investigating officers' conclusions ranged from a
belief that the physical disability of these men would be difficult to
determine to estimates that from t o to 85
percent of the men were consciously malingering.
-
- Since so large a proportion of
the men in this casual camp had had one or more venereal diseases, it
occurred to some that residual infections might be at the root of the
problem. "I was definitely assured by the Division Surgeon,"
an observer reported, "that this was not the case. He pointed out
that the type[s] of cases to which I referred were in all cases proper
cause for discharge from the service, so that this source of disease
could be eliminated from our consideration in regard to this
personnel." 72
-
- That many of the men
chronically complaining of their physical inability to perform normal
duties were suffering from more than the elementary physical disorders
of which they complained was undoubtedly true. One Army psychiatrist, writing on the general problems of maladjusted
soldiers, both white and Negro, indicated that "It is remarkable
that the clinical picture in maladjusted soldiers is almost
stereotyped. The pattern may be compared with schizoid reaction
types. His behavior is marked by a more or less manifest hostility to
the Army, a feeling of ill health, and an inability to perform duties
or get along with fellow soldiers." Among the case histories
which he cited were the following:
-
- A 25 year old Negro recently
inducted complained of pains and stiffness in his back following a
spinal tap at induction. In addition, he had difficulty in breathing
with his gas mask on. He had feared entry into the Army because he had
heard that he would be mistreated and probably shot if he came to a
Southern Camp. After
- [297]
- being in the Army for 3 months
and finding everyone friendly he felt better, and had less pains in
his back. He was transferred to the Special Development Unit but after
two weeks he was complaining of weakness of his bladder which he
blamed on cold weather.
-
- A 33 year old colored soldier
[had] complaints of pains in the chest . . . . He had innumerable
conflicts because of a prejudice concerning his own race. He felt that
he was quite a bit better than most other negroes. At the same time,
discrimination bothered him. He was not able to get along well on his
Post with other soldiers since he felt superior to them and it
bothered him that he had to live with them or was treated in the
same way. At the time of his examination he was assigned to work on a
salvage truck. This work evidently did not satisfy him. This was in
contrast to the real situation, since in civilian life he never had
much of a job.73
-
- Few units were equipped to
deal properly with men whose physical ills had a psychological
basis. But that all men who had been transferred to casual detachments as physically unable to keep up with their units'
training should have been so disposed of was also questionable. Some
organization commanders had used the existence of casual detachments
as a means of getting rid of men who, with better training, might have
- been able to come up to
performance standards. Once the men were shunted to casual detachments
progressive deterioration set in.74
-
- The disposition of the
physically unfit devolved upon the service commands as units moving
overseas transferred their substandard men. With few overhead
installation vacancies and with increasing complaints from training
centers that the Negro soldiers being received from ground unit
transfers were usable neither in technical units nor in those
performing heavy labor, the service commands were at a loss to
absorb these men. While discharge provisions had been liberalized,
there were no provisions for the discharge of men classified
physically fit for general service. Moreover, there were not enough
zone of interior assignments to absorb the genuine limited assignment
Negro personnel gathering in service command installations.
-
- The Army eventually disposed
of most of these men through a new procedure which authorized the
discharge of all enlisted men below the minimum physical standards for
induction for whom no suitable assignment was available.75 When
added to the prevailing means of discharge for physical or mental
disability, inaptness, undesirable habits or traits of character,
conviction by a civil court, and convenience to the government, the
route for discharge of most surplus men, including the excess of
physically unfit Negroes, was open. During the war years, discharges
as physically and mentally unfit accounted
- [298]
- DECEMBER 1941-MAY 1945
-
Year |
Honorable |
Other Than Honorable e |
Transfer To Inactive Status "Less Over 28" |
Total Separation |
Physical and Mental Disquali- fication
a |
Misc (Honorable) Over 28; Overage; Retired
b |
Total |
131,221 |
15,639 |
13,222 |
8,202 |
168,284 |
(Percent) |
(77.9) |
(9.3) |
(7.9) |
(4.9) |
(100.0) |
1941 (December) |
276 |
24 |
18 |
50 |
368 |
1942 |
5,497 |
169 |
427 |
127 |
6,220 |
1943 |
51,807 |
13,062 |
2,889 |
7,049 |
74,807 |
144 |
58,824 |
1,530 |
7,546 |
845 |
68,745 |
1945 (Through May) |
14,817 |
854 |
2,342 |
131 |
18,144 |
-
- a- Includes certificate of
disability and inaptness or neurosis.
- b- Includes non-Army
commissions, to enter USMA, USNA, and USCGA, minority, dependency,
importance to national health, safety or interest, and others.
- c- Includes undesirable habits,
misconduct, and concealment of desertion, or discharge other than
honorable. Dropped from the rolls, resulting from AWOL, not included
in separations.
- d- All figures exclude battle
and non-battle deaths, missing, prisoners of war, interned, declared
dead, separated to accept Army commissions, and demobilization
discharges.
-
- Source: Strength of the Army,
1 Jul 46, STM-30.
-
- for more than three fourths of
all Negro separations, excluding casualties, demobilization
separations, and discharges to accept commissions.76 (Table 8)
-
- Nevertheless, in the summer of
1945 the problem of the disposition of "leftover"
personnel medically declared fit for service still remained. From Fort
Huachuca alone, between five and six hundred men, described as
individuals "who would not work and who would not let anyone else
work" had been organized as a provisional ordnance company
and sent to Umatilla Ordnance Plant, Oregon, where they were found to
be "entirely unsatisfactory." They were returned to Fort
Huachuca by the Ninth Service Command for disposition. Some 185 more
were due in from a California station. Four disposition teams were busily engaged at
the station hospital examining these men.77
-
- The problem of physical
fitness, with the venereal diseases as its constant component and
with physical and psychological deterioration an increasingly
widespread phenomenon in units, was clearly a major one in the
employment of Negro troops in World War II. It played a continuous and
distinctive role, both in the selection and in the later use of Negro manpower by the Army. It slowed up training. It impeded the
preparation of Negro units for overseas movement. It consumed
disproportionate time on the part of commanders and of medical and
personnel officers. And throughout the war it affected another and
even more difficult problem to assess-the general morale and
motivation of Negro troops and units.
- [299]
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